From Sudan to Bab al-Mandeb: One Map of Conflict

Othman Mirghani

What is unfolding in Sudan is not an internal war in the conventional sense of the term. External dimensions have been present since the conflict’s outbreak, and its regional repercussions have never been hidden.

In the early stages of the war, a convenient approach prevailed—one that simplified the scene by portraying it as a dispute between partners in a transitional phase, or as the result of imbalances in political and military power. This characterization was not innocent. In reality, the conflict’s core nature is better understood as a struggle between the model of the state and the model of armed power operating outside its logic—one that derives its legitimacy from weapons, external funding, and foreign recruitment.

In this context, Sudan is not merely an isolated domestic arena, but a sensitive geopolitical node. The war cannot be reduced to a contest over power or resources alone; it must be understood as a battle over position. Sudan sits at the center of the belt linking the Arab world and Africa, and lies at the heart of a geopolitical fault line involving two major Arab powers today: Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Any attempt to encircle these two states or shrink their regional influence cannot be completed without igniting Sudan, seeking to dominate it, and turning it into a launchpad for a broader geo-strategic project that extends far beyond its borders.

Maps are the key to understanding geopolitical movements. Setting aside internal factors, anyone seeking to grasp the dimensions of developments stretching from Sudan to Yemen and Somalia need only study the map—and read the web of interests and ambitions working to ignite the region, seize control of its assets, redraw spheres of influence and balances of power, and impose a new reality in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and the Horn of Africa.

Viewed through the lens of an actor seeking to empower and deploy an armed force operating outside state authority—one that threatens national unity, seeks control over resources and strategic gateways, and aims to turn the country into a platform for regional blackmail—the war in Sudan appears as a replica of the recent trajectories seen in Yemen and Somalia.

The gravest danger lies not merely in opening a front of armed confrontation, but in normalizing the idea of an armed force outside state control—treating it as a legitimate political actor, or as a permanent reality that cannot be transcended. Should this path be completed, it would spell the end of sovereignty in its practical sense.

The success of a project that enables an armed force to capture the state in Sudan—or to entrench itself as an entity over a swath of territory—would create a model ripe for replication in other arenas suffering similar fragility. When forces operating outside the state are rewarded, or their expansion is overlooked, the message to the region is unmistakable: fragmentation becomes a bargaining tool, and chaos an investable option. Left unchecked, this message will reproduce itself in different forms, at a higher cost for all.

The present moment is exceptionally sensitive, coinciding with a comprehensive phase of regional reordering. There are actors seeking to redraw maps of influence and geography by sowing disorder, which makes awareness of the importance of stabilizing states and supporting their unity and sovereignty a matter that transcends Sudan alone to encompass the entire region. Models of fragmentation have proven their failure, and treating militias as substitutes for the state has produced nothing but deeper chaos.

Ports along the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandeb, and the Horn of Africa have become anchor points in the struggle for influence, where security, economics, and politics are fused into a single model that marginalizes the nation-state and weakens its ability to exercise an independent sovereign decision. Within this framework, the dismantling or exhaustion of regular armies, and the rise of parallel armed forces, becomes a practical gateway to indirect control over geography—without the cost of traditional occupation.

Sudan, by virtue of its location, coastline, and potential, represents an indispensable link in this scheme. Leaving it in a state of security fluidity, or turning it into a weak state divided among competing centers of power, opens the door to imposing new regional arrangements in the Red Sea—arrangements that do not necessarily account for the interests of littoral states or their national security. Hence, what is happening in Sudan cannot be separated from the ongoing race for influence over maritime corridors, nor from attempts to create new faits accomplis governed by the logic of power rather than international law or national sovereignty.

In this sense, Sudan becomes a real test: will it be re-anchored as a unified state capable of reconstruction, or left to slide into yet another model of fragmentation and exportable chaos?

What Sudan needs today is not mediation that preserves the roots of the crisis, nor solutions that equate the state with those who challenge its very existence. What it needs is a clear approach that restores a simple but decisive principle: no stability without a state, and no state without a monopoly over arms and sovereign decision-making. This requires explicit support for territorial unity, an end to external military and financial backing for the Rapid Support Forces, and sponsorship of a political process that does not reward those who seek to impose themselves by force, but instead rebuilds institutions on national foundations—however difficult the path may be.